“We have crossed it,” she said, glancing up at the sun, and indicating the muskeg with a backward jerk of her head.  “Now for the horse.”

“What about your promise to tell me about Peter Retief?”

“Guess being the narrator you must let me take my time.”

She smiled up into her companion’s eagle face.

“The horse is a mile or so further up towards the foothills.  Come along.”

They galloped side by side over the moist, springy grass—­moist with the recently-melted snow.  “Lord” Bill was content to wait her pleasure.  Suddenly the man brought his horse up with a severe “yank.”

“What’s up?” The girl’s beautiful eyes were fixed upon the ground with a peculiar instinct.  Bill pointed to the ground on the side furthest from his companion.

“Look!”

Jacky gazed at the spot indicated.

“The tracks of the horse,” she said sharply.

She was on the ground in an instant and inspecting the hoof-prints eagerly, with that careful study acquired by experience.

“Well?” said the other, as she turned back to her horse.

“Recent.”  Then in an impressive tone which her companion failed to understand, “That horse has been shod.  The shoes are off—­all except a tiny bit on his off fore.  We must track it.”

They now separated and rode keeping the hoof-prints between them.  The marks were quite fresh and so plain in the soft ground that they were able to ride at a good pace.  The clear-cut indentations led away from the mire up the gently-sloping ground.  Suddenly they struck upon a path that was little more than a cattle-track, and instantly became mingled with other hoof-marks, older and going both ways.  Hitherto the girl had ridden with her eyes closely watching the tracks, but now she suddenly raised her sweet, weather-tanned face to her companion, and, with a light of the wildest excitement in her eyes, she pointed along the path and set her horse at a gallop.

“Come on!  I know,” she cried, “right on into the hills.”

Bill followed willingly enough, but he failed to understand his companion’s excitement.  After all they were merely bent upon “roping” a stray horse.  The girl galloped on at breakneck speed; the heavy black ringlets of hair were swept like an outspread fan from under the broad brim of her Stetson hat, her buckskin bodice ballooning in the wind as rider and horse charged along, utterly indifferent to the nature of the country they were traveling—­indifferent to everything except the mad pursuit of an unseen quarry.  Now they were on the summit of some eminence whence they could see for miles the confusion of hills, like innumerable bee-hives set close together upon an endless plain; now down, tearing through a deep hollow, and racing towards another abrupt ascent.  With every hill passed the country became less green and more and more rugged.  “Lord” Bill struggled hard to keep the girl in view as she raced on—­on through the labyrinth of seemingly endless hillocks.  But at last he drew up on the summit of a high cone-like rise and realized that he had lost her.